MONTPELIER — Officials say an 81-year-old Vermont woman convicted in 2006 of beating her husband to death has been released to a nursing home because of a “terminal or debilitating” illness.

Hope Schreiner is the state’s oldest female inmate and its second-oldest inmate in custody.

Dean George, chairman of the Vermont Parole Board, said the Department of Corrections made the decision to grant Schreiner medical furlough.

Seventy-eight-year-old Robert Schreiner was found dead in his West Townshend driveway in June 2004. Prosecutors say Schreiner killed her ailing husband because she was tired of caring for him and wanted to start a new life. Schreiner said she found her husband’s body after returning home from a morning of running errands.